The Trees Are Full of Starlight
by Kang Xiu
Summary: Subtitled: "The Tale of the Lass Eponine and the Unlucky Bald Guy Bossuet: A Romance of Strange Dimensions". A het pairing. (What is happening to me!)
1. The Disgustingly Long Author's Note

~Author's Note~  
  
Hello. This is Korin. I had intended to be very subtle and all, but I've changed my mind. If I was very subtle, more likely than not, at least someone would not understand. ^_^ So. This is a parody. Of Eponine romance. See! The title's even a musical quote! *nods wisely*  
  
Please note that this was difficult for me to write, as I loath Eponine, and it was hard not to damage her. *ahem*  
  
Now, on to the subject of reviews. I have no objection to getting flames. Flame all you like. "u suck!!!11!!" is a very good flame. So is "Your writing style is awful and your premise abysmal". But I'll still be more likely to care about the latter. I'll be even more likely to care about the latter if it reads, "Your writing style is awful and your premise abysmal because Eponine would never fall in love with anyone besides Courfeyrac!" If I wanted to be quite parodish, I'd probably say I wouldn't update until I got five reviews. But that's not so. I post for my own enjoyment and amusement, so I really don't care. As you can see, my ego is so great that if I don't get reviews, I'll just say that no one understands my cultured humour.  
  
Since you've waded through that Parisian Sewer of an Author's note, please enjoy the fic.  
  
~Cheers, Korin 


	2. In Which the Lass Eponine Meets the Unlu...

~1~  
  
She runs, and as she runs, she feels the soles of her feet slap the cobblestones. They're tough now, her feet, worn, and no longer can she feel the glass and sharp stones in the streets, the things that used to hurt her so she cried. She can't cry now. She's not slept in two nights, and her eyes are so sore and burning that the salt water of the crying made her want to scream. So she made her tears go away. She's good at that sort of thing now. She can feel the skirt of her shift riding up around her thighs, and the sleeve of the blouse slip off her shoulder again, for what must be the thousandth time. Is this what repels M'sieur Marius? It's everything about her, though, not just the shift. He's terrified of her, of her unhandsome face, of her unwashedness, of her torn clothes and the way she tries to make her voice go soft when she speaks to him. She loves him, and it is love, not just a silly girl's lust as her father says, she loves him, and he's frightened of her. So she'll run away from him, away from him and the Lark and the hell they put her in.  
  
Her head is bowed as she runs, protecting her from the stares of the others, of the everyone elses, who she hates. She doesn't watch where she runs, because her sorrow is so great that everyone should know to get out of her way, everyone should see her pain and let her pass by, a desperate shadow. She knows she should've expected it when she smashes into the young man, but she didn't, she thought he's move for her, and her breath is gone as she tumbles to the ground.  
  
With a start, she notices that the tooth which has been hurting her for a few days is not in its proper place. Her tongue searches her mouth, and at last finds the lump in her cheek. Meanwhile, the young man is regarding her with interest. He puts out a hand before her face, and orders in a soft, firm voice with hints of laughter, though not at her, "Spit." She does so, and he ruefully wipes his hand on his trousers, then holds up the blackened ivory of her tooth. He sighs.  
  
"Pity. Enjolras tells us to protect the poor, and I go about knocking their teeth out. Mademoiselle, you must forgive me."  
  
But she's not listening. She's looking at him for the first time properly, and she's noticed something distinctly odd about him. Seeing her eyes fixed on his head, he turns them heavenward, as if attempting to see what she does.  
  
"Ah yes. And that, mademoiselle, is why I am called Bossuet."  
  
"Bossuet?" she questions, eying him with an untrusting gaze. "That's not a name."  
  
"All right, very well. It's Camile L'aigle. And what is yours?"  
  
"Éponine Jondrette."  
  
"What a lovely, musical name. May I call you 'Ponine?"  
  
She pauses a moment, weighing her opinions of him. Finally, with an inclination of her dirty head, she consents. "'Ponine." And she can't help but notice how gentle his hand is as he helps her to her feet. 


	3. In Which the Lass Eponine Goes Out with ...

~2~  
  
At night, lying awake on the floor, looking out the cracked window at the musty stars, she thinks on him. He's not handsome, but neither is she. She remembers her parents, when they were still parents, and not people she hates. They were neither of them comely people, yet once they were happy, as far as happiness went. She thinks on him, and she thinks on M'sieur Marius, who is beautiful. He's a beautiful boy. He's clean, and kind to her when he dares to come near her, treating her with a respectful pity that hurts. This man, on the other hand, is strange. He's elegant; he has a manner of a rich lord, of maybe how she imagines a man of the king's court, though it's clear he's not wealthy, or anything of the kind. His suit is shabby, but he wears it with the air of silks and lovely thick velvets, things she sees on the bourgeoisie and longs to touch, but never will.  
  
She sighs, and startles, and glares as Azelma rolls over in sleep and grab onto her ragged sleeve. With a quick movement, she jerks away, and flees the house to run the streets in the ugly moonlight. She sees shadows, and shies from them; she sees lights, and hides from them as well. Finally, in hopeless horror, she curls under a table in an outside cafe, dreaming of sleep in awakeness, and feeling a soft, chilled wind kiss her cheeks.  
  
~~~  
  
When she sees him again, he looks different; a little more tired, a little more frayed about the edges, like her shift where the hem is coming down. Still, he pulls out a grin for her, lifting a hand in recognition.  
  
"Why, but it isn't 'Ponine? 'Ponine, 'Ponine, musical 'Ponine. You're prettier every time I come across you. However do you manage it? Your flowing locks, your seductive smile..."  
  
She kicks him in the knees lightly, curling in her toes. He collapses to these same knees, feigning injury, and attracting odd looks from passers-by. He then pauses a moment, observing her foot, and letting his eyes travel up to her calf, without, she notices happily, a trace of the look Montparnasse wears doing the same thing. After a moment, he makes his observation.  
  
"You have blood on your legs, dear. Down the insides. No one has attempted to murder you, I hope."  
  
She shrugs. "No. I climbed a wall, and fell over the other side. And... I fell on a cat..."  
  
He nods seriously, not laughing at her. "I see." Then, solemnly, "Mademoiselle, I so rarely catch a glimpse of you, I wonder if you might join me at luncheon, which I shall strive to conform into a hideously bourgeoisie affair, despite everything Enjolras has drummed into my head these past months, thus serving to confuse you as much as can be conceived, and twist your spiritual being in a sad lump of unhappy clay, frightened into a snailshell at the prospect of a ladies' tea. Or, in the layman's terms, would you please accompany me to yonder cafe, where I shall squander my remaining francs to make us momentarily imagine ourselves prosperous? Or, in laymen's terms, would you please take lunch with me?"  
  
She stares at him for a moment, then smiles, squinching her eyes shut with pleasure. He pats her cheek, and offers his arm. With a sudden soft thrill, she takes it, and he puffs out his chest and cheeks, and saunters along the pavement, doing his best impression of a self-satisfied turkey-cock. She can appreciate it almost, though her mind is full of racing half-thoughts and fragments, and something is fluttering strangely in her chest. 


	4. In Which the Lass Eponine Finds the Cafe...

~3~  
  
She remembered the lunch and the talking long after. She remembered them because she came home late, and left the letters she was to deliver, and so her father kicked her in the side with his old boots. The skin bruised over, and she treasured it, a memorial to her time in the old cafe with the young man who had no hair, who treated her like a peculiar something between a fine lady and another man, with a cynical truthfullness that was irrisitable. She couldn't help but smile, then, when her father's boot caught her and flung her body down, because she knew it would make a kind of momento. She only regretted the smile, however nice it had felt, for it earned her a slap in the face for grinning life a fool while recieving a beating. She retreated to a corner of the room, so dreamy that her mother questioned what was wrong with her. She gave no answer, nursing her side, rather able to taste the tough meat from the stew, the soft crust of the bread, which still made her gums bleed, the faint lingering of the cheap wine that he'd laughingly purchased, claiming that in her company, it was champange. It was nice to be teased without malice, just as it was nice to have a wide bruise to remember it by. She put the fragrance and the taste and the ache into her torn shift pocket where it would be safe, nestled in the young man's smile.  
  
~~~  
  
She tears down the street, catching her foot on the side of a building, the impact ripping through even the toughened protection she's gained, spilling behind herself small red footprints. She's looking for a cafe with a special name, with a name he mentioned in passing, a name that goes with another name; Musain and Enjolras. Enjolras might have been an ancient philosopher for all she knows, but he's in talked about as the young man's leader, and the leader lives in the back room of the Musain, is all she's certain of. Perhaps he only meant it as a joke, that Enjolras worked there often, but it is of no importance. Only that he is likely to be there as well, with the Enjolras and the Enjolras' idea and being and spirit, and there she will find him.  
  
Her eyes scan the street for the name, hungrily grasping for the letters. She can read. She's proud of it. It made him smile and praise her, and she's awfully proud of it.  
  
...Corinth. Musain.  
  
She spins in the door, looking about herself wildly, searching. She catches the sleeve of a waitress, a fat, unlovely woman, panting hard, nearly upsetting them both, gasping out the name of Enjolras who leads Musain. The woman points to a door that she'd have noticed, but not immediately, and she rushes to it. Thanks are not needed. Why should she spare even those minutes? She flings the door open.  
  
And there he is, sitting at a table in the back, chatting amiably with a boy wearing a pale blue cravat with pinky-orange stripes. At the tables are seated other men, but she has no need to see them, or be aware of them. She ignores them all, even the one as beautiful as Montparnasse, more beautiful than M'sieur Marius, even the one with kind eyes, even the one with a handsome face and roguish smile. She runs to him, to hers, knocking over a chair in reckless abandon, falling to her knees at his feet, clinging to his sleeve. He stares at her, astonished, amazed.  
  
"It's 'Ponine, my musical 'Ponine. Whatever's wrong?"  
  
She cannot see the angry glare of the boy with tousled blond curls, nor the disbelieving look of the one with a playbill before him. She cannot hear the harsh, wry voice of the one with the bottle commenting on her looks uncomplimentary, nor the soft, gentle one of the boy with the horrible scarf, anxious of the reason for her tears.  
  
Hers, Himself, stands, murmuring quietly to her, excusing himself from the stern disapproval of the lovely one, and the inquisitive, alert eyes of the one with worn hands. He leads her from the room, an arm about her shoulders, allowing her his shirtfront to cry in. She shivers at his sleeve across her shoulders, for they are bare, the shift's bodice having slipped again.  
  
"'Ponine, wherefore you cry?" The words are flippant but the tone is not, deeply worried. He tilts her chin up with two fingers, forcing her to look into his eyes with her aching, salt-filled ones.  
  
"I - there was a rat in the apartment - and I couldn't help it, I couldn't, I swear to Christ! Only I wanted - "  
  
"Wanted what?" Although his face blurs in and away from view by the tears, she can hear the frown in his voice, and loathes it, longs for it to leave her alone, and for his approval, though no one could ever approve of what she's done.  
  
"I didn't mean to, I just wanted - wanted to taste - I couldn't help it! I've never seen a rat bleed before, and it was warm! Warm! And it shivered! And I - I - "  
  
"You didn't eat it, did you?" He's horrified. She can't blame him, but how she wishes he wasn't.  
  
"No! But I tore it open, and it screamed, and everything inside came out, and - oh, Jesus! God! It was so - "  
  
"Hush..." He wraps gentle arms about her, holding her closely, not thrusting her away as she's expected. He brushes a hand through her hair, seeming ignorant or uncaring to the grease and dirt, to the thinness of it. He murmurs again, as well, rocking her, as they stand upright. Finally, her tears begin to die, and they stand, she in his embrace, and he embracing. 


	5. In Which the Lass Eponine Consummates He...

~4~  
  
He takes her home that night, to the apartment he shares with another of the men, the one with sad eyes and a rough voice, the one who has a crumpled playbill left on the table, announcing a play that she cannot make out the title of.  
  
She stares about herself, frightened and cowed by the sight of an apartment in such condition. The playbill man does not keep things straightened well, and room is chaosed, a different sort of chaos, however, from the chaos of her family's cramped living in the Gorbeau tenant. She cannot help but eye a croissant left solitary on the table beside the playbill, staining it with grease residue, and obscuring the title. The playbill man sees her, and offers it, his hand large and smelling slightly of pinesap, from where she could not imagine. He watches her oddly, muttering.  
  
"O nation miserable, with an untitled tyrant bloody-sceptered, when shalt thou see thy wholesome days again?"  
  
She backs away from him, holding the croissant, as he turns abruptly to Bossuet.  
  
"Should I go out this evening? Will it be convenient if I leave you two to yourselves?"  
  
"Oh, this is your apartment, Bahorel. I shan't force you out. Really, it's quite good of you to let me stay with you."  
  
"Since Joly threw you out. But of course. I have a theatre to attend tonight." And he ducks out the door, casting a look over his shoulder. Bossuet sighs.  
  
"Ah well. He's a good man, my 'Ponine. Believe it."  
  
She will, if he says so, though the man frightens her. His eyes are strange, and his manner, and the things he says.  
  
Musing, Bossuet continues, "I wasn't aware he went to the theatre..."  
  
Then he turns and stands by her. "'Ponine, 'Ponine. What shall I do for you?" Slowly, he places his arms about her, lips brushing hers. She trembles, and returns the butterfly kiss tentatively. He kisses her again, and she give it back to him more boldly. His lips taste of sweet bitter juice, as though he had eaten a rose, and she kisses him of her own this time, searching for the flavour.  
  
~~~  
  
She has slept with men before, with Montparnasse, with other of her father's friends who took her to their beds, but she never has been with anyone who treated her so gently and lovingly. She was enthralled by his touch, thrilled deep inside herself, her fingers and toes pricking, as they moulded. She considers him now, as he sleeps, and feels a warmth in her chest. She isn't afraid any longer, of silly things like living or dying or existing. She's perfectly happy. She'll always be happy. She loves him. Not with, as her father had said, a silly girl's lust, the longing she felt for M'sieur Marius, who was so beautiful and innocent and frightened. She loves him wholly, and truly, with real love. She shall always be happy. 


	6. In Which the Lass Eponine Comes Unto the...

~5~  
  
The barricades. Barricade is a word she hears too often now, a word that makes her unsure. Bossuet has spoken of it, and the playbill man with whom he shares a home. And today people hurry past her, too fast, with strange looks on their faces, and strange fires in their eyes. She is dressed as a man now, for she knows the unreally beautiful man would send away women. He is the sort, as Monparnasse is, to find them useless in a fight, though she is certain he would think them worth more respect than 'Parnasse, in a way of pity and regard for those weaker. She has never liked him, and his lovely face. That face, and the cold eyes, are not half so delighting and wonderful as the eyes of her Bossuet.  
  
She half-runs along, caught in the stream and swelling river of men rushing, rushing towards an obstacle she will soon see. A barricade. The barricade. The word she has heard and learned and not liked. The word whose sound she finds displeasing. The feature whose existence she resents for taking too much of her time with Bossuet. She climbs over it quickly, hearing the sound of feet, hearing the ominous noises of guns and boots. Bossuet pulls her over the last bit, arms encircling her.  
  
"What are you doing, musical 'Ponine?"  
  
"I'm fighting with you."  
  
"Yes, I suppose you are. I can't turn you back. You wouldn't listen to me." He gives her a sad smile. "If you get killed, I shall never ever forgive you. Do you understand?"  
  
"Yes." She speaks quietly now, no longer worried, just intrigued. She's seen her brother, and little, pretty M'sieur Marius. Moments later, she hears gunfire, and searches for a musket of her own. She is handed one by the beautiful man, who does not look at her, seeming upset. She can feel his doubt, his uncertainly. She knows he is afraid, and that he trembles, but she knows not for what. The man with kind eyes touches his shoulder, and he turns, and whispers something, to which the man speaks back comfortingly.  
  
"It's all right to be afraid, Michel. You're no god. It's all right to be fearful before you change the world."  
  
"Oh, mon dieu... Phillipe, you give me the strength I do not possess. I can fight now. Come with me."  
  
She turns from them, scurrying about, wanting suddenly to hear what they say now, before they make the world turn the other way. Before they stand France upon its head, they must have some dreams or fears or such. She wants to hear.  
  
She comes across the boy with the terrible scarf, only now it is pale green and magenta, as he sits beside the boy with blond curls. They speak to each other in soft voices, and the curled boy settles an arm about the other. The soft voices become faintly dreamy as they share and trade, and she steals away, feeling wrong to stay.  
  
She sees the young man with the alert eyes, quietly singing, and the playbill man listens, eyes closed, tensed. He interrupts the song now and again to insert a word or a sentence of the peculiar shalts and thous she cannot understand. They are in a peace together, she can understand instead, the song and the words wrapping around each other.  
  
She catches sight of M'sieur Marius, looking forlorn and lonely, staring out over the barricades. His lips form the word, "Cosette", and she turns away.  
  
The man with the smile is lying on his back, looking up at the sky, frowning rather and composing a play-letter aloud.  
  
"Dear Maman... today we changed the world. We have held our revolution at last, and things come together. I write to you as a free man. You may be displeased, and think me a disobedient son. I am. But now we are free, I should like to be one of our family again. I should like to be loved by you and Papa again. I - "  
  
She creeps away. She doesn't want to hear the rest of his letter, and she doesn't want to desecrate it either. She stumbles across Bossuet, and he smiles.  
  
"You've searched the barricades. 'Ponine, we will save France, but perhaps I shall die... perhaps you shall. I want you to know that I love you." He takes her hands in his.  
  
"I love you too," she whispers.  
  
They both startle and turn at the sound of the beautiful boy's voice. "The Guard is coming! The first attack! Prepare!"  
  
Owari ~ End 


End file.
